‘Our weaker careers make friendship easier’: Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater on Blue Moon and their 32-year friendship | film

‘I “Like this, it’s good,” Ethan Hawke says to Richard Linklater, midway through a spirited digression that has already moved from politics to the Beatles to the late films of John Huston. “What’s good?” Linklater asks. “All of it,” says Hook, referring to the London hotel suite with its coffee table, sofa and matching upholstered chairs; The whole cold machine for the international press holiday. “I like that we can spend a few days in the room,” he says. “It feels like a continuation of the same conversation we’ve had for the last 32 years.”

It’s all about the conversation with Linklater and Hawke. The two men love to talk; A movie often sparks conversation. The director and actor first met backstage at a 1993 play (“Sophisms, by John Mark Sherman,” says Linklater) and ended up chatting until dawn. This conversation set the stage for what would eventually become “Before Sunrise,” a star-crossed romance that channeled an off-screen romance that sent Hawke and Julie Delpy wandering around Vienna in the mid-1990s, walking, talking and stopping to kiss. “Yes, that was the moment,” Linklater recalls. “That set the tone.” “Meeting Ethan backstage, then flying to Vienna.”

Blue Moon, Linklater and Hawke’s 11th collaboration may be their most fascinating yet as it is a lavish period drama – a tale of 1940s Broadway. Hawke plays jilted lyricist Lorenz Hart, backing up the bar on the opening night of Oklahoma! His former writing partner Richard Rodgers is also celebrating alongside Oscar Hammerstein. Hart dresses smartly, speaks quickly, but can hardly control himself, and so it was with the production itself. Blue Moon was shot quickly over 15 days on an Irish soundstage disguised in downtown Manhattan. The luxurious decorations belie its independent roots.

For Hawke in particular, it was difficult to get the film right. In previous collaborations, he essentially played a version of himself, or an amalgamation of himself and Linklater, while Hart was an extended and much more demanding performer. It was as if he was used to being a band member and then suddenly had to learn a completely different instrument.

“Yes, you play drums on this song,” Linklater says.

Hook nodded. “But in practice, it put us in a different situation. It felt dangerous. I became kind of annoying. I felt like I was hitting a wall of my talent.”

“This is where you want to be,” Linklater says.

Hawkeye isn’t sure. “Well, you want it when you’re done. And then, my son asked, ‘Was it fun?’ And I said it was like going down a ski slope, which is very difficult. And when you land safely, you say, ‘That’s great.’ But I’m not sure I would have said it was great when I was trying to maintain some sense of grace. When I was trying not to hit all the trees.

Beautiful or not, it’s an eye-catching display, an old-fashioned flamboyant physical transformation. Hart was bald and 5 feet tall, so Hawke shaved his head and stood in a trench to appear shorter than his fellow actors. This literally gave him a new view of the world. “Because the world is tall. It’s ingrained in our culture, in our language. Tall and handsome. Proud and strong. It’s hard when people don’t want to flirt with you. It changes the way you see yourself.”

He remembers having an actor friend on set, who would help him set sight lines. The friend sat in the ditch and his wife was close to him; Suddenly she rose above him. “Wow, that’s very interesting,” she said. “I certainly won’t marry you.”

Hook winced at the memory. “Because that’s shocking, isn’t it? That this woman he’s been married to for 20 years should be repulsed by something so superficial. Not his mind, not his talent, not his looks, not his essence. You’re short and bald. That’s not masculine to me.”

“Yes, but your wife said that too,” Linklater said.

“Yes, well, I did,” Hook admits with a laugh. The actor has been married to Ryan Shohos since 2008. It’s a good marriage; She loves him, although she has her limits. “It wasn’t the height or baldness that bothered my wife,” he says. “It was the combing. The disguise is always worse than the same thing. I dyed my hair, and it’s very obviously dyed, and then I combed it out. And Ryan came to visit the set one day, and she looked at me and said, ‘You know what, I’m leaving.’ “I didn’t marry Larry Hart.”

Hawke is 55, and Linklater is a decade older. Their films have traced and mapped their lives, moving from the weightless joy of youth in Before Sunrise to the burdensome adult responsibilities of its sequels (2004’s Before Sunset, 2013’s Before Midnight). Pieced together over the course of 12 years, “A Wonderful Boyhood” featured Hawke as a down-and-out Texas father who eventually straightened out, settled down and traded in his old sports car for a family-friendly pickup truck. And now comes the blue moon, full of jaundice and pines, of a world that has evolved. It is – dare one say it – the first film of a sad old man.

“Oh,” Linklater says. “I think I know what you’re saying here: ‘You’re in the final act, my friend.'”

That’s not quite what I’m saying; They have plenty of ways left to run. Hawke and Linklater certainly don’t have much in common with Hart, a flamboyant, angry alcoholic who effectively died in the gutter at the age of 48. If anything, they resemble the duo that surpassed and surpassed him: the indie equivalent of Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Probably every profession has people like Hart: tormented, talented, and ultimately a lot of trouble. Sooner or later, something has to give. “I’ve gone through my own artistic breakups,” Linklater says. “And it’s always for the same reason – addiction. It’s sad and emotional. It’s the worst. But when you’re in charge, you have to make a decision for the ship. ‘We’ll send you to rehab, but you can’t stay here, you have to get out.’

The tyranny of sudden and premature death is that it overshadows life. Hawke began his acting career alongside River Phoenix and Robin Williams. He performed opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman in the 2007 thriller Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. The three have since been posthumously portrayed as tragic and fantastic figures. According to Hooke, this was only half true. “Because there was nothing tragic about these people,” he says. “If they were sitting here on the couch, you would see how completely undramatic they were.”

It is Hoffman’s death — in 2014 of a drug overdose — that remains the most difficult to process. “To understand Phil, you have to understand how many days he has overcome addiction,” Hook says. “Phil had a problem. He lost one day. But he won all the other days, for about twenty years. I don’t want to say he had no role in his death. But it was a difficult period and he took responsibility.” [his sobriety] seriously. He was on his way to a meeting [the day that he died]He shakes his head as if to erase it. “And I know other talented people – less well-known – who were lost in the same way.”

“A lot of success or a lot of failure,” says Linklater. “You can react badly to both.”

The key may be to maintain a good level of balance – or, failing that, to have a regular collaborator to measure your own life. Technically, Hawke and Linklater don’t need each other. Each man has forged a thoroughly successful career of his own (Hawkeye appears in the lucrative horror series Black Phone; Linklater will soon release his hilarious black-and-white Nouvelle Vague, about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless). But this independence may be what maintains the health of the relationship and the balance of the partnership.

“Yes, my wife once said the same thing,” Hawke says. She said: Well, it’s easy for them, because they’re on the same level. And perhaps this is true. Status plays a huge role in the world. “There are actor-director relationships where the actor becomes huge and does a favor to the director by being in his film. Or the opposite – the director becomes an important person and starts distributing favours.

“However, fortunately, life has kept us steady.”

“We’re both running,” says Linklater. “Our poor career has served us well.”

Hook shrugs. “Well, it makes friendship easier. I mean, when Ryan said it, I didn’t like how it sounded. I don’t want to think of myself that way. I like to think that I’m not self-conscious about my status and can maintain a friendship with anyone. But she’s not wrong, it makes it easier.”

There are other factors to consider. “There’s the business side, too. One of the things that’s hard for an actor is that if you don’t make movies that make money, people won’t be able to hire you anyway. If I don’t have what’s seen as a successful career, I’ll be putting Rick at a disadvantage. It doesn’t matter that he likes me; he won’t get any financing. So I have to take care of that part of the ship myself.”

Life is long and the movie business is hard. Independent filmmaking doesn’t get any easier. The latter was particularly difficult, Linklater says. But the director feels good and full of energy as he approaches old age. Besides, he adds, filmmakers are not like professional athletes. It’s not as if they start missing a crucial step every year.

Now it’s Hawke’s turn to step in. “I know what people are losing.” They lose idealism and curiosity. The profession defeats you. You become cynical and lose curiosity.”

“But that’s depression,” Linklater says, frowning. “To not be interested in things. To think: What’s the point, why bother?”

“Yes, but that’s just what I’m saying,” Hook says, almost mumbling. “You haven’t lost that at all. I mean, look, we’re sitting here with this little indie movie that we had to make in 15 days.” He turns towards me. “There are directors of Rick’s age and in the same position as Rick who would quickly lose interest in working this seriously.”

“Without money,” Linklater adds. “They’re thinking: ‘Wait, this is where I started. Why should I go back to the minor leagues?”

“But you would never think of it as minor leagues,” says Houck. “That’s because you’ve never equated success with money. It’s not about the salary, it’s about making good art. That’s why we’re here.” Referring to the suite: coffee table, sofa and matching chairs. “And do you know where we are? Do you know what this is?”

“Big slams,” Linklater says and laughs.